Capra, Alessandro (ca. 1610-1683/85). La nuova architettura militare d antica rinouata da Alessandro Capra Architetto, e Cittadino Cremonese, Con l Indice, e loro Argomenti; Diuisa in tre Parti, Con l Indice, e loro argomenti; Consecrata al merito singolare dell Eccellentis. Sig. il Sig. Gio: Tomaso Conte Enriquez de Cabrera Conte di Melgar, Gentilhuomo della Camera di Sua Maestą, &c. Gouernatore, e Capitan Generale dello Stato di Milano. Bologna, Giacomo Monti, 1683.

Capra, Alessandro (ca. 1610-1683/85).

Editore: Bologna, Giacomo Monti, 1683., 1683

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4° (213x148 mm). Collation: §4, §§4, A-Z4. [16], 184 pages. Half-title. Woodcut architectural title-page. Woodcut author s portrait on fol. §§4v. Five folding woodcut plates (repaired tear to the third plate; gutter and lower margin reinforced, and two small tears in the upper margin to the fourth plate). Woodcut decorated initials, headpieces, and large tailpieces. Woodcut illustrations (mostly full-page) and diagrams in the text. Contemporary boards. Spine covered with late nineteenth-century vellum, with inked title. A good copy, some leaves uniformly browned; minor inkstain to fol. §§4v, barely affecting the graphic surface. The first edition of the lavishly illustrated treatise on military architecture and engineering by the Cremonese Alessandro Capra. Capra s career as a military engineer prospered during the domination of the State of Milan, or Lombardy, by the Spanish monarchy. Habsburg Spain had great interest in military strategy, especially when it came to its highly strategic Lombard dominions, always seeking to better its troops, introduce new technologies, and build fortifications. In this context, Capra published his wide-ranging La Nuova Architettura militare, which he dedicated to one of his patrons, the Spanish politician Juan Tomįs Enrķquez de Cabrera, 7th Duke of Medina de Rioseco (1646-1705), then Governor and General Captain of Milan. Capra s military manual is divided into three parts and supplemented with numerous woodcut illustrations depicting not only fortifications and war machines, but also mechanical and hydraulic inventions of all sorts, including, for example, mobile fountains, or a method of raising drinking water from aquifers. Many of Capra s inventions are, however, not entirely original or even new , as the title-page clearly states and large is his debt to the great architectural and engineering theory of the Italian Renaissance. A second edition of the work appeared in his hometown of Cremona in 1717, gathered in the two-tome publication La nuova architettura civile e militare, which also included another of Capra s works, L archittettura famigliare, first issued in 1678. Fowler 80; Riccardi i, 234-235; Vinciana 4348; M. Dezzi Bardeschi, Su Alessandro Capra, ingegnere e architetto cremonese, e sul suo trattato d architettura , Studi secenteschi, 4 (1963), pp. 45-79; L. Reti, Francesco Di Giorgio Martini s Treatise on Engineering and Its Plagiarists , Technology and Culture, 4 (1963), pp. 287-298. Codice articolo ABE-1658711412993

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: Capra, Alessandro (ca. 1610-1683/85). La ...

Casa editrice: Bologna, Giacomo Monti, 1683.

Data di pubblicazione: 1683

Legatura: Hardcover

Condizione: Very Good